Taco Tuesday, Or Maybe Not

OK, so that title was a shameless reference to the Lego Movie because I can’t think of a non-blah title for a post about a blog challenge I’m concocting. I’ve never participated in any of the blog challenges I’ve seen floating around (like the Crayola Color Your World challenge, for example). But this weekend I got to thinking of a fun challenge I’m going to try myself: regularly scheduled, themed posts for specific days of the week.

Like Taco Tuesday! Except not that. Blogging about tacos every Tuesday would get old, fast. The challenge idea — let’s call it the Theme Day Challenge Taco Tuesday Challenge — came to me when I realized that many of my favorite blogs and vlogs publish regularly scheduled content on certain topics on specific days of the week. As a consumer, I find myself excited when I realize it’s Car Chat Friday on my favorite vlog, or that it’s time for another installment of Downfall on Olive These Words. So I figure, maybe the regularity will help with both my blogging skills and engaging readers consistently.

The challenge as I am choosing to do it is slightly daunting due to the volume of posts required. Which is why, initially at least, I am going to aim for a trial period of one month. Once the challenge month is over, I may keep it up, I may not, who knows.

But I would argue that the beauty of the challenge is precisely that it will require writing and blogging at regular intervals, and about a variety of subjects to keep me on my toes. After all, I’ll never succeed as a writer if I don’t set specific goals and buckle down to meet them.

So, here are the daily themes I’ve come up with for the initial challenge:

Miscellaneous Monday: Where the post could be anything! Also might be called Random Monday, but I like alliteration. 🙂 This is likely where I’ll post about, say, marathon training, sports, mental health, and other topics that I do cover but that aren’t the main focus of my blog.

Toast of Tuesday: Where the post is related to the “girly” part of GirlyGeekGirl. Namely, recipes, food/drink reviews, fashion, home decor, beauty, wanting to switch careers and become a Disney princess, etc.

Weblog Wednesday: Where the post is a blog in the most traditional sense of chronicling goings on in my zany life.

Fangirl Friday: Where the post is related to the “geek” part of GirlyGeekGirl. Namely, SFF book reviews, video game reviews, cosplay ideas, and other sundry geekdoms.

Milk & Serial Saturday: Where I serialize a short story over the course of the challenge month.

It’s that last one, Milk & Serial Saturday, that I am honestly most scared of. The others may require a little extra devotion of time due to the theme requirements, but I’ve got loads of ideas for each of those already queued up waiting to be published. MSS, as I shall call it, though … daunting squared!

It both scares me and excites me for a couple of reasons. I find the prospect of serializing a short story thrilling because it stretches my writing muscles in different ways than the novel does. I find it daunting because, well, to be perfectly honest, I’m scared that my work won’t be good enough to be read.

I know, I know. My work has to get out there eventually if I ever want to self-publish. But so far all I’ve ever published online, whether on this blog or past blogs that no longer exist, is flash fiction. The two novel manuscripts I’ve written have ended up in the proverbial dust bin, read by only a few sets of eyes.

But I mean, that lack of confidence, that trepidation, is a big reason I’m setting this challenge. Rejection is inevitable. Having people not absolutely loveevery single word I write is inevitable. And who knows, maybe, just maybe, the stories I tell will entertain people and help me grow as a writer.

Thank you for taking the time to read and comment! It will certainly be a fun challenge. And lol it is quite diverse — to be honest, for quite a while I put off even starting this blog because I thought blogs couldn’t really be multi-topical. But, here we are 🙂

I tried the theme post thing for a while (workout Wednesday was oelne of mine. Short story Saturday another) but found it to be too limiting, some days I wanted to post something that didn’t fit into that days topic so I decided to let it slide. Maybe I’ll try again, build some structure back

Thanks for your comment, Craig! You definitely bring up a really good point when it comes to themed day posts. On the one hand, the structure is great motivation, but on the other hand, as you point out, what if you sometimes don’t want to feel limited? It’s an excellent topic of debate, one that I’m still grappling with.

Wow, this is bold. Do you have a day job? In December I committed to a steady diet of running posts, and I’ve only got 3 complete (and about 6 in various stages of writers block). But *all* I think about is running. I’m excited about the serialized short fiction. I think I’d like to try that.

Well you certainly know how to challenge yourself Charlotte! I think it’s a great idea. It does seem like a lot though. I can really see the benefit of themed posts at set times. My honest feedback would be that as a reader I would struggle to keep up with this number of posts. I am only able to check my reader 2/3 times a week. I really like to make the effort to read and comment on other people’s posts but it can be difficult the more frequently people post. Like you say, a one month trial would be good. Then maybe see which posts get the best response. I can see your rational for more discipline in your writing as you want to be a writer.

Thank you for the commentary and honest feedback! To be honest I’m not concerned with the time demands. I generally write posts in about 20 minutes apiece, and I also generally keep a number of posts queued at once. But you do bring up something I was wondering about myself earlier, which is what a sufficient frequency of posts is for the average reader’s schedule. As you said for yourself, for example, if someone posts more than a few times a week you may not be able to keep up with reading them as they come out. For me personally for example, though, I generally find it a turn off if a blog posts too infrequently. Anyway, it’s certainly an interesting topic, but at the end of the day I reminded myself that I’m blogging for my own personal fulfillment first and foremost, so I decided to try the challenge for a month. 🙂

It’s a bold plan so best of luck! On the point of posting too much – readers will only read certain posts. For example, they might only be interested in the Fangirl and MSS posts, in which case you won’t overburden people because they’ll pick & choose what they like anyway. As long as you can commit to writing all the posts, I don’t see it having any detrimental effect on your readers 🙂 As someone else pointed out, after a month, you can see which posts connected with people and for those that didn’t, you might be able to drop one or two.

I’m trying a regular feature, but it’s once a month and based around a quick review of 5 songs. It’s a way to incorporate some music into my blog but it’s not regular enough to take my focus off other things. I also like to do the wordpress weekly photo challenge every Saturday morning so aside from those, I’m aiming to make sure I have at least one meaty post a week, and then throw in the occasional filler as they come to mind.

I agree with you, I tend to steer away from blogs if there’s a huge gap between posts (I’m talking months). If they aren’t committed to it, how can I be?

Thank you so much, Mike! I appreciate you taking the time to read my post and comment so thoughtfully. By the way, I am really excited to be following your blog now and can’t wait to read more. You had me at “coffee!!”

After much careful thought, I totally agree with you about the question of posting too much vs. too little. For a platform like, Facebook, for example, I think it’s quite easy for someone to over-post, since that’s a medium that many/most users check multiple times throughout the day. So, seeing ten status updates in a row from John Doe can happen quite easily and be a tad annoying.

But the more I thought about it, the way the WP Reader works, the issue of over-posting is a moot point either way, assuming one posts less than once a day. Because, if a reader checks the WP Reader multiple times a day, for example, then they’ll still only see one post from me on that given day. And if a reader only checks the app a few times a week, then assuming they follow more than just me, they’ll still only see one of my posts unless they scroll back quite far. And on top of that, as you rightfully pointed out, when it comes to a potpourri blog that is multi-focused, I’d imagine that readers have already self-selected which focuses they read or don’t read.

And yes, on the topic of blogs that rarely post, or haven’t posted in more than a month or so — why should I follow them and get my hopes up for new material if they’ve recently demonstrated that they won’t produce it?

No problem at all! I’m really glad to have found your blog too 🙂 And I’m happy to hear you’re going to post more often. By the way I love the term ‘potpourri blog’… I’ve always wondered how to describe mine when it feels like a mish-mash of a few things. Now you’ve given it a pleasant smell as well haha